


Don't Cut His Strings

by lokineedstherapy



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Drowning, Gen, Introspection, Near Death Experience, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 01:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokineedstherapy/pseuds/lokineedstherapy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agents are trained to think very fast in dangerous situations, so if one was shot off a train, for example, he would have a lot of useless thinking time to contemplate death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Cut His Strings

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to give myself ideas for an assignment at school. I apologise if it's inaccurate to the movie or to real life (tell me and I'll edit it).
> 
> Un-betaed, all mistakes are my own
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing

After being thrown to the ground and shot and beaten to hell and back all in the name of this sodding hard-drive, James was pretty sure that MI6 owed him the decency to not shoot him off a train moments before he got his hands on the thing, but that was what happened regardless. The words “Take the bloody shot!” resonated in his ear as he was expelled from the bridge, arms pin-wheeling as excruciating pain blossomed in his right shoulder, perfectly matching the hole left in his body from the enemy’s gun.

Briefly he felt like Swiss cheese, but that quickly faded as a modicum of panic appeared in his brain --there wasn’t anything he could do to help his situation, he realised as he took an instinctive deep breath. The world seemed to slow around him but all he could see was the sky, the sun glaring in his eyes, and then the water below him. It glinted like so many thousands of shards of glass in this hatefully happy sunshine. From this incredible height hitting that would be like jumping face first at concrete.

Fear rose in his gut as James became aware that all of the evidence was pointing towards his immediate death upon impact.

Another deep breath, eyes squeezed closed, and then his head broke the surface. The swirling morass of water he was intruding upon made no initial effort to accommodate him; he was up to his waist before it begin to move, and when it did it shrank away from him in an effort to exclude him for as long as possible. Once his feet had been swallowed it jumped up hungrily, raring to catch any other gifts the bridge might have to offer.

But James didn’t notice any of those details for the world around him had abruptly ceased to be moving at a snail’s pace and he was left reeling from it, struggling to catch up -- It took a couple of seconds after being below the water for the pain to start. He felt like everything had broken. Not just his arms and his legs and his ribs but every damn bone in his entire damn body ached from the collision. Air had flown from his lungs and they were screaming for oxygen, he was struggling to not draw the water in. It wanted to claim him for its own.

For a moment, he was tempted to let it.

But then he was caught by a current and brought to the surface, back into that bright light. He sucked in a much needed breath, feeling cracked ribs shift to accommodate the lungful of warm air.

He managed to hold his breath as he was thrown yet again to his presumed death as the shallow area spat him over a cliff edge with a waterfall. James tumbled this time as he fell, spinning and rotating as he was beaten black and blue all over again by the harsh pound of the falling water and sediment.

Staying loose and limp as he slammed into the frothing, roiling water turned out to be a fantastic life choice. He hit it back first, and one of the cracked ribs snapped with horrible clarity, but he managed not to splutter and spit out the precious air which he had drawn in before plummeting downwards for the second time today.

Blood from the two wounds on either shoulder began to pollute the area around him, leaving a little tell-tale trail that was the only indication that he had been here at all as he descended further into the depths, as the hatefully happy glare of the sun became progressively distant. It was becoming increasingly apparent that another current wasn’t going to whisk him away this time.

The further James sank, the darker the world became, the higher the pressure on his broken bones and aching lungs. It wasn’t long before he began to feel lightheaded. It wasn’t long before he passed out.

Suspended in the water he looked like a puppet – inanimate and lifeless, hanging slumped on its strings and patiently waiting, unwittingly, for each one to be cut in turn.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

 

James woke up on a river bank, saturated in mud and grime and only barely breathing. Unable to use his arms to prop himself up he did his best to expel the filthy water from his lungs and elected to just lay there and revel in it.

How? How had he survived? No answer he could formulate would suffice to explain away such a feat. Why? He hadn’t the slightest idea.

He found that he didn’t care.


End file.
